How We Work

A Guide for Design-Led Lean Product Management

Our Philosophy: Building with Intention

At CXT Software, we are transforming our product development approach, moving away from a reactive, output-focused model to a proactive, Design-Led Lean Product Organization. This means we build intentionally: starting with deep understanding and empathy, validating through research and design, and focusing relentlessly on outcomes, not just shipping features. Our goal is to deliver evidence-based, market-validated product solutions that increase customer value and recurring revenue while eliminating downstream delivery ambiguity.

This approach is a hybrid of Design Thinking and the Lean Product Playbook, and intended to be operated by Empowered Product Teams. TLDR: We slow down at the start to move exponentially faster later.

The Guiding Principles

Start with Discovery. Period. No tickets enter development without a validated problem statement.
Empathize and Understand: We establish strong, continuous, feedback channels to talk to our users, understand their needs, workflows, and jobs-to-be-done.
Validate Relentlessly: Ideas are hypotheses to be tested, not foregone conclusions; kill the weak ones early.
Iterate and Learn: Ship small, inspect outcomes, improve. We embrace feedback and refine solutions to be frictionless and intuitive.
Focus on Outcomes: Success is measured by real business and product outcomes (e.g., reducing CAC, improving LTV, increasing adoption, lowering time-to-value). Shipping features is not the same as delivering value.
Data-Driven Decisions: We leverage qualitative and quantitative data to inform our choices, from prioritization to measuring success.
Transparency and Alignment: Everyone has visibility into our process, priorities, and the "why" behind our decisions.

The Product Development Lifecycle

From Ideas to Outcomes

Our product lifecycle is designed to ensure we are solving the right problems and building the right solutions by following the Double Diamond design and innovation process.

Problem Space on the left, Solution Space on the right. Each stage has a hard exit gate; no skipping diamonds.

The Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC v2, updated Feb. 2026)

We keep the Double Diamond mindset (problem → solution), but we operate with a simplified, Epic-centered execution model.

Our delivery unit is the Jira Epic, synced to Productboard.

Stage	Goal	Required Outputs	Productboard Status
Capture & Triage	Funnel all signals into one place and do a quick sanity check	Insight logged + tagged, linked to area/objective, initial scoring placeholders	Insight / New Idea
Discovery	Prove the problem is real and worth solving	Discovery Brief: problem, evidence, scoring justification, hypothesis, risks, early solution direction	Candidate
Specification	Create a build-ready blueprint with minimal ambiguity	PRD w/ functional prototype (Figma Make / Google AI Studio), technicall spec, rollout plan, pricing notes, analytics plan	Design / Planned
Delivery	Ship, enable, and verify outcomes	Jira Epic + Stories flowing in Kanban, release notes, telemetry verified, Outcome Review at agreed checkpoints	In Progress → Released/Launched

Artifact policy (intentional simplification):

We minimize “artifact sprawl.” Every feature requires

Discovery Brief
PRD
Jira Work Items (Epics, Stories, Tasks, Releases)
Outcome Review

Other docs are optional and should be embedded as sections/links inside these core artifacts.

Toolchain & Sources of Truth

Need	System	Notes
Planning & Prioritization	Productboard	Single source for ideas, scoring (WSJF‑RICE), roadmap
Execution	Jira	Jira Epics are the unit of delivery. Epics are synced from Productboard and contain links to the Discovery Brief, PRD, prototype, and outcome review. Stories flow via Kanban
Documentation	Confluence	Final PRDs, decision archive, release notes
Design	Figma / Google AI Studio	Figma is the source of truth for UX and prototypes. For non-trivial initiatives, a functional prototype (Figma Make, Replit, etc.) is expected and linked from the PRD/Epic.
Analytics	Pendo	Pendo is the source of truth for product usage and KPI measurement. Instrumentation requirements are defined in the PRD before build, and results are summarized in the Outcome Review.

Prioritization Framework and Scoring

We score every validated opportunity with the Prioritization and Scoring Framework during the Discovery Brief process. No score → no slot on the roadmap.

Prioritization Framework and Scoring

Cultural Commitments

Continuous Discovery is a habit, not a phase. PMs carry the torch.
Empowered Product Teams own outcomes end‑to‑end. No hand‑offs, no blame.
Radical Transparency. Scores, backlogs, and results are visible company‑wide.

Own the Outcome. We celebrate impact, not releases.